The present invention relates to a method of driving a two-dimensional array ultrasonic probe, and an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, and more particularly to a method of driving a two-dimensional array ultrasonic probe, and an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus that can reduce the load on hardware for driving the two-dimensional array ultrasonic probe.
In a conventional ultrasonic probe having transducers arranged in one dimension, the number of the transducers is, for example, about 128. Therefore, the hardware for driving the ultrasonic probe has the capacity to drive about 128 transducers.
In recent years, a two-dimensional array ultrasonic probe having transducers arranged in two dimensions has been developed, in which, for example, the number of transducers is 1024 when the transducers are arranged in a 32 by 32 matrix. Therefore, the hardware for driving the two-dimensional array ultrasonic probe is required to have the capacity to drive as many as 1024 transducers.
However, if hardware must have the capacity to drive as many as 1024 transducers, the load on the hardware becomes very large.